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Editorial Content for A Lonesome Blood-Red Sun: A Bone Detective Novel

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

L. Dean Murphy

A LONESOME BLOOD-RED SUN, the second entry in the Bone Detective series, follows 2022’s A FEARSOME MOONLIGHT BLACK and once again features Detective Dave Beckett. The author, David Putnam, may be best known for his Bruno Johnson novels. At first glance, this book appears to be somewhat in the vein of Carol O’Connell’s BONE BY BONE, but there are more thriller overtones than psychological suspense.

"Overused terms like ratchet, rollercoaster, gripping and action-packed all fail to adequately describe this phenomenal thriller."

Teaser

Dave Beckett, a homicide detective who doesn't color within the lines, is regulated to the lowest job in the division and is known by his peers as The Bone Dick. He handles all "bag of bone" cases found in San Bernardino County's 20,000 square miles, at present count 256 pending unsolved. It's a boring, mundane job...until it isn't. In A LONESOME BLOOD-RED SUN, Beckett is called to a house far out in the desert where a dog has brought a bone to the back door. Beckett investigates and discovers that the victim, two years dead, is someone he knows. With his usual verve and colorful methods, Beckett tracks the killer. The trail leads through a warren of dead ends until he discovers a most unlikely suspect hiding in plain sight.

Promo

Dave Beckett, a homicide detective who doesn't color within the lines, is regulated to the lowest job in the division and is known by his peers as The Bone Dick. He handles all "bag of bone" cases found in San Bernardino County's 20,000 square miles, at present count 256 pending unsolved. It's a boring, mundane job...until it isn't. In A LONESOME BLOOD-RED SUN, Beckett is called to a house far out in the desert where a dog has brought a bone to the back door. Beckett investigates and discovers that the victim, two years dead, is someone he knows. With his usual verve and colorful methods, Beckett tracks the killer. The trail leads through a warren of dead ends until he discovers a most unlikely suspect hiding in plain sight.

About the Book

Dave Beckett, a homicide detective who doesn't color within the lines, is regulated to the lowest job in the division and is known by his peers as The Bone Dick. He handles all "bag of bone" cases found in San Bernardino County's 20,000 square miles, at present count 256 pending unsolved. It's a boring, mundane job...until it isn't.

In A LONESOME BLOOD-RED SUN, Beckett is called to a house far out in the desert where a dog has brought a bone to the back door. Beckett investigates and discovers that the victim, two years dead, is someone he knows. With his usual verve and colorful methods, Beckett tracks the killer. The trail leads through a warren of dead ends until he discovers a most unlikely suspect hiding in plain sight.

A LONESOME BLOOD-RED SUN is fiction melded with true-life incidents that makes for a non-stop thriller of the first order.

Editorial Content for At What Cost, Silence?: The Texian Trilogy, Book 1

Reviewer (text)

Barbara Bamberger Scott

Set in pre-Civil War Texas and featuring a large cast of dynamic characters, AT WHAT COST, SILENCE? is the first entry in Karen Lynne Klink’s Texian Trilogy. History and mystery pervade this fascinating saga, leading to the division of a nation and the separation of friends and lovers. Read More

Teaser

Adrien Villere suspects he is not like other boys. For years, he desperately locks away his feelings and fears --- but eventually, tragedy and loss drive him to seek solace from his mentor, young neighbor Jacob Hart. However, Jacob’s betrayal of Adrien’s trust results in secret abuse, setting off a chain of actions from which neither Adrien’s wise sister, Bernadette, nor his closest friend, Isaac, can turn him. AT WHAT COST, SILENCE? presents two contrasting plantation families in a society where strict rules of belief and behavior are clear, and public opinion can shape an entire life.

Promo

Adrien Villere suspects he is not like other boys. For years, he desperately locks away his feelings and fears --- but eventually, tragedy and loss drive him to seek solace from his mentor, young neighbor Jacob Hart. However, Jacob’s betrayal of Adrien’s trust results in secret abuse, setting off a chain of actions from which neither Adrien’s wise sister, Bernadette, nor his closest friend, Isaac, can turn him. AT WHAT COST, SILENCE? presents two contrasting plantation families in a society where strict rules of belief and behavior are clear, and public opinion can shape an entire life.

About the Book

Adrien Villere suspects he is not like other boys. For years, he desperately locks away his feelings and fears --- but eventually, tragedy and loss drive him to seek solace from his mentor, young neighbor Jacob Hart. However, Jacob’s betrayal of Adrien’s trust results in secret abuse, setting off a chain of actions from which neither Adrien’s wise sister, Bernadette, nor his closest friend, Isaac, can turn him.

AT WHAT COST, SILENCE? presents two contrasting plantation families in a society where strict rules of belief and behavior are clear, and public opinion can shape an entire life. Centerstage are the Villeres, a family less brutal than the Harts, but no less divisive. Often-absent Papa Paien Villere guards several secrets he has kept from everyone --- including one that could destroy his entire family. Years after Jacob’s betrayal, Adrien falls hopelessly in love with his former mentor’s erotically precocious and beautiful young sister, Lily --- whose father has affianced her to a wealthy older man.

What will happen if Lily’s violent brother learns of Adrien and Lily’s clandestine affair? Will Adrien aid in freeing Isaac --- an enslaved Black man --- as promised? Will Bernadette find the unconventional life she seeks? Or will their entire world end as states secede and war creeps ever closer?

The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok

October 2023

Jean Kwok’s THE LEFTOVER WOMAN is the story of two women and one child. In China, Jasmine Yang had a baby girl. Her husband told her the infant died, but instead he had their girl given up for adoption. The One Child Policy was in place in China, and he wanted a son, not a daughter. Jasmine later learns what happened and heads to New York to find her child. To get there, she sells her wedding ring and entrusts her safe passage to snakeheads, to whom she owes a huge financial debt.

Veil of Doubt by Sharon Virts

October 2023

VEIL OF DOUBT, Sharon Virts’ second novel, is a historical mystery set in 1872. In it, Maud, the three-year-old daughter of Emily Lloyd, has died after a short illness, from which she seemed to be rebounding. This would be tragic enough if the other three children in the family and her husband had not died previously under mysterious circumstances. Emily is accused of poisoning Maud and quickly is charged with murder. Powell Harrison and his brother, Matthew, take on what appears to be an unwinnable case. Powell has experienced a personal loss recently and watches Emily, projecting some of how he feels onto her. But he is convinced that something is not ringing right. She does not seem capable of murder, yet the child is dead, as are the other family members.

Which of the following recently released or soon-to-be-released nonfiction titles have you read or are you planning to read? Please check all that apply.

October 20, 2023, 528 voters

October 20, 2023 - November 3, 2023

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of October 20 - November 3.

On October 13th, readers from all over New England descended upon Brattleboro, Vermont, for the 22nd annual Brattleboro Literary Festival. Nestled between the West and Connecticut rivers, Brattleboro was the perfect setting, boasting not just the festival itself but many delicious restaurants, plentiful shopping and tons of recreational activities.

October 17, 2023

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of October 16th and October 23rd that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to Carol Fitzgerald's two latest Bookreporter.com Bets On picks: BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll, in which two women from opposite sides of the country are brought together by violent acts of the same man, and THE MUSEUM OF FAILURES by Thrity Umrigar, an immersive story about family secrets and the power of forgiveness.

October 17, 2023

Earlier this month, my book group had our last outdoor meeting on my deck, unless the weather warms up again. As we met, we also selected our next two books. For November, it’s THE PARIS DAUGHTER by Kristin Harmel; for December, it's THE SPECTACULAR by Fiona Davis. The latter was selected as a holiday homage to the Rockettes.

We also would like to do something festive for December. If you have any great holiday tie-in ideas, send them my way, and we will share them in the next newsletter. Please use the subject line “Holiday” in your email so I am sure to see it.

Ariel Djanikian, author of The Prospectors

The middle daughter of struggling California fruit farmers, Alice Bush is accustomed to feeling inferior and destitute. But when her elder sister’s husband strikes a vein of gold in the Yukon Territory, Alice finally seizes control of her destiny by joining a wave of white settlers making the dangerous trek to the Klondike. By luck and circumstance, she becomes tightly intertwined in her sister and brother-in-law’s newfound fortune, as well as the beginning of a generations-long family quest for wealth. One hundred years later, in 2015, Alice’s great-great-granddaughter, Anna, must grapple with moral conflict and questions of justice as she travels to the Klondike to bequeath her would-be inheritance to the First Nations peoples who paid the price for its creation.